Method for Low-Cost Wide-Area Passive Interdiction of Civil Class Airborne Drone Devices

ABSTRACT

The present invention comprises a novel method for passive wide-area interdiction of small remotely controlled or fully autonomous airborne devices, commonly referred to as drones, whether singular vehicles or in swarms, by deploying a low-cost fouling material into the desired protection zone. The deployed fouling material being light-weight, so as to float through and widely disperse within the airspace over the protected zone, then so designed to physically ensnare or attach itself in a manner to degrade the flying capability or other mission capabilities of the unwanted drones passing through or loitering within the protected airspace. One example, but not the only example, of such embodiment might be dispersal of very fine synthetic spider-silk threads having the characteristic of high-strength combined with kilometer-lengths and a relatively short active state life span, after which naturally and relatively quickly dissolving with any remaining residue being absorbed into the environment. The fouling material might be prefabricated or fabricated from base materials real time, perhaps using some form of synthetic extrusion engine. The possible means of deployment range from common fireworks or mortar canisters to tethered balloons to loitering air vehicles.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/621,231, filed 24 Jan. 2018.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a novel method for passive wide-area interdiction of small remotely controlled or fully autonomous airborne devices

BACKGROUND

Technological advancements have made possible the wide availability of relatively sophisticated remotely controlled and fully autonomous airborne devices, now commonly referred to as DRONES, to the consumer masses.

The subject of this invention applies mainly to a class of mass-produced and custom-built drones intended for civil use. They are generally smaller and less powerful than the remotely piloted vehicles and drones currently used by government agencies.

The civil use class of drone is already finding widespread use in intrusive applications from paparazzi style news gathering to personal spying to surveillance missions operated by quasi-military and other rogue operators. As the payload capability, navigational accuracy and operational range/duration for the civil class of drone continues to improve with technology, the intrusive nature will become more threatening and potentially lethal.

The civil use class of drone is naturally stealthy by nature of its construction materials, small vehicle size, minimal thermal footprint and lack of radio frequency identifiers. Moreover, their low cost becomes an ‘enabler’ for applying ‘swarming’ tactics using multiple drones to overload conventional protections. As such, conventional means of targeted-interdiction are, at best, at a substantially asymmetric disadvantage with respect to intruder cost. And, given the variety of intruder types and swarming capabilities, more likely woefully inadequate.

The civil class of drone's primary weakness margins are flight stability, lift capacity vs. propulsion, and its effective mission envelope (standoff range vs. loiter time at desired altitude).

Therefore, a need exists for a low-cost wide-area passive interdiction method that exploits the weaknesses found in the civil class of drone. One possible means of addressing this need is by deployment of an inexpensive fouling substance which, when left to drift through the atmosphere over the interdiction zone, will eventually encounter and foul the marginal flight capabilities of any civil drone devices caught in its path.

A further need exists for a means or apparatus having characteristics to dispense fouling substances having various interdiction properties into the atmosphere.

Finally, there is also a need for a means or apparatus having the characteristics to deliver/deploy the dispensing means at the desired altitude and position or over a range of altitude/position across the interdiction zone according to presumed drone altitudes and expected drift conditions.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention comprises the dispensing of light-weight fouling material into the atmosphere, with the intent that this material drift down and foul the flight capabilities of any civil class drone devices encountering it. Primary means of fouling may be the result of accumulation on a propeller or increased drag on a wing. Other means of disturbance may include extraneous destabilizing of antennas, cameras and optics and electronics, and even of amplifying or illuminating the detectible signature of the vehicle. The invention may be accomplished using a variety of micro-fluidic dispensing apparatus, including but not limited to piezo-electric methods (for example, such as those found in an inkjet printer) dispensing synthetic liquid crystalline polymers, micro-fluidic engines dispensing ultra-thin spider-silk threads, pressurized and explosive means of ejecting such fluids mix through and extrusion process, or simply explosively deploying a container of pre-formed materials. The invention includes all forms of ground-to-air delivery; including fireworks-like projectile launch, drone equipped dispensing systems, and dispensing balloons or aircraft.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some embodiments of the present invention are illustrated as an example and are not limited by the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which the like references may indicate similar elements and in which:

FIG. 1—Illustrates one example of a cloud (2) of fouling substance being dispensed (1) and deployed (3) (4) (5) in the manner of the present invention with the intent of destabilizing or nullifying the operational capabilities of intruder drones presently entering or operating within the interdiction zone (3).

FIG. 2—Illustrates several examples, but not the only examples, of the present invention showing ground-based (FIG-2A) and air-vehicle (FIG-2B) means by which a simple launcher (1) or (2) or complex deployed air-vehicle system (7) (8) (9) (10) having a dispensing ability (4) (10) (11) of the fouling substance (5) (12) could be deployed into or over the interdiction zone (6) (13).

FIG. 3—Illustrates several examples, but not the only examples, of how the intruder drone operational capabilities such as propulsion (1) airfoil and aerodynamics (2) camera and optics (3) or communications (4) might be fouled or degraded or illuminated for detection purposes by certain characteristics of the fouling substance of the present invention.

FIG. 4—Illustrates several examples, but not the only examples, of the present invention showing apparatus (FIG-4A) for deploying (1) and dispensing (2) (3) preformed (4) fouling substance or (FIG-4B) fabricating (5) (6) (7) (8) and dispensing (9) fouling substance on location.

DETAILD DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION:

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well as the singular forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one having ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and the present disclosure and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

In describing the invention, it will be understood that a number of techniques and steps are disclosed. Each of these has individual benefit and each can also be used in conjunction with one or more, or in some cases all, of the other disclosed techniques. Accordingly, for the sake of clarity, the description will refrain from repeating every possible combination of the individual steps in an unnecessary fashion. Nevertheless, the specification and claims should be read with the understanding that such combinations are entirely within the scope of the invention and the claims.

Deployment methods, dispensing apparatuses and descriptions of fouling substances are discussed herein. In the following descriptions, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details.

The present disclosure is to be considered an exemplification of the invention, and is not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiments illustrated by the figures or descriptions below.

The present invention will now be described by referencing the appended figures, representing preferred embodiments.

FIG-1 describes a section of terrain having a section for which it is desired to prevent unfriendly drone devices from meeting their mission objectives; an exclusion zone. The terrain area may consist of any combination having a rural, industrialized or residential characteristic and having natural environmental considerations such as no wind or variant wind conditions. The invention encompasses a dispensing mechanism (1) capable of emitting any manner of fouling materials (2) such as spider-thread like fouling lines perhaps a km in length or other forms of stringy, sticky chaff or fluid substances that might adhere to and diminish mission capability of an intruding drone (3). The dispensing mechanism (1) may be deployed to a fixed positioned or across a range of vertical and horizontal position in a manner to enable the fouling material (2) to be deployed within and drift through and across the exclusion zone defined by (3) and (5) while taking into account the winds aloft (4) and other factors such as precipitation that might be present.

FIG-2 describes possible means for deploying the fouling material into the desired airspace. FIG-2A describes a simple ground-launched means of deployment, using low-cost fireworks style launching techniques such as a mortar tube (1) or a bottle rocket (2) to lob a dispensing projectile (3) toward the desired deployment position (4) where the canister is ruptured in a manner to dispense fouling material (5) into the interdiction zone and thereby ensnaring unfriendly drones (6). It should be noted that in its simplest and possibly least expensive embodiment, the bottle rocket could simply ‘un-spool’ the fouling material along its trajectory. FIG-2B describes an air-vehicle deployment means possibly involving a fixed-base control center (7) controlling a tethered platform such as a balloon (8) (10) or controlling a loitering air-vehicle platform via radio link (9) (11) causing it to dispense fouling material (12) into the interdiction zone and thereby ensnaring the unfriendly drones (13).

FIG-3 describes means applied by the selected fouling material to attach to and degrade mission capability of the unfriendly drone. These may include entangling one or more of the drone's propulsion systems (1) and/or aerodynamic surfaces (2) thereby destabilizing the drone's ability to maintain its desired mission attitude, altitude and/or flight path as well as possibly diminish its achievable loiter time and/or range. Other fouling material characteristics may be envisioned having the ability to obscure or otherwise degrade camera/optics (3) or to degrade radio link performance (4). Yet another possibility envisioned, but not shown here, may be to ‘tag’ the unfriendly drone with a fouling material having the characteristics to illuminate the drone (make it more visible) to friendly detection and countermeasure systems.

FIG-4 describes possible means for containment and dispersion of fouling materials. FIG-4A describes a simple means using conventional fireworks or mortar style containment (1) (2) (3) for packaging, carriage and dispersing of a pre-formed fouling material (4) into the atmosphere by rupturing the canister using a pressurized or explosive charge. Another such means (not shown) might be to simply un-spool the preformed material as the projectile is proceeding along its trajectory. FIG-4B describes a means for real-time in-vehicle generation of fouling material using known technologies such as might be found in ink-jet printers, 3D-printers and synthetic extrusion engines to force raw material (5) (6) through a combining/forming mechanism (7) (8) resulting in singular or multiple streams of finished fouling material (9) being dispensed from the device and dispersed more or less directly into the atmosphere of the intended interdiction zone. 

What is claimed is:
 1. The dispensing of a fouling substance into the atmosphere for the purpose of degrading and/or nullifying the operational capabilities of intruder drones present within a protected interdiction zone, comprising all manner of dispensing apparatus capable of: a. releasing combinations of chemicals and/or other substances into the atmosphere where they may naturally combine to form the desired fouling material. b. processing chemicals and/or other substances on-the-fly into a desired fouling material then being dispensed by the apparatus into the atmosphere. c. directly dispensing premanufactured fouling material into the atmosphere from a canister or other means of containment.
 2. The nature and characteristics of the fouling substance of claim 1 comprising all manner of form and feature deemed appropriate to achieve an optimum float and/or drift time within the protected airspace (the interdiction zone), a high probability of intruder intercept, and an ability to exploit known operational weaknesses of intruder drones operating within the interdiction zone, including elements of: a. geometry (for example, string-like, chaff-like or mist-like droplets) b. strength (tensile and/or shear) c. adhesion (stickiness) d. opacity (blurring of optics and/or attenuation of radio frequencies) e. luminosity (ability to illuminate the intruder to friendly detectors)
 3. The nature and characteristics of the fouling substance of claim 1 and claim 2 comprising materials and features having minimal detrimental effect on the environment. a. ingredients and finished product biologically safe to humans, wildlife and foliage b. having a short life span (i.e. self-dissolving or otherwise naturally dispersing) c. resulting in a residue that is not noticeable or visually/materially objectionable 